French Canada

France under the Old Régime did not supply a great number of emigrants to its colonies across the Atlantic. In fact, just 15,000 Frenchmen and Frenchwomen sailed for Canada in the seventeenth century, and two-thirds of them stayed in the colony for a short period and either returned to France or died in Canada without getting married. This was a very low number: the British Isles, with a population just over one-third of France’s, sent almost 380,000 immigrants to the New World over the same period.In fact, France was at the time showing various symptoms of social discontent that should have justified a larger number of refugees fleeing to Canada, whose abundance of resources contrasted with the famine and unemployment among the poorest classes. Although France wasn’t really overpopulated, conditions there were favorable to emigration; these conditions, had they coincided with a real attraction of Canada, would have encouraged the departure of large contingents of settlers for the New World. But few French people migrated, as Canada, a distant, wild, and dangerous country, had a poor reputation. On top of this, the authorities believed that the French population was not as growing quickly as it should be – and, in fact, that it was shrinking due to wars, plagues, and general misery. In response to Intendant Talon, who had asked him to find the means to form a “grand and powerful state” in Canada, which would involve a massive wave of immigrants, Colbert said, in a sentence that was to mark the future of the country, “It would not be prudent [of the king] to depopulate his kingdom as he would have to do to populate Canada.” And yet, even had departures been multiplied tenfold, the effects of emigration on the most populous country in Europe would have been imperceptible – and the fate of North America would probably have been quite different.

In any case, the result of this small founding population was that the French-Canadian stock grew from a relatively small number of people, about 10,000 immigrants. If we consider the male immigrants, from whom family names were transmitted through the generations, the number is reduced to about 4,500 – the total of immigrants who had at least one son who married.

Our family has a long history going back to very beginnings of French Canada.Sent on an expedition by Francis I, King of France, Jacques Cartier arrived at Gaspé in 1534, taking possession of lands that had been inhabited for thousands of years by Amerindians and the Inuit. In 1608, Samuel de Champlain made landfall on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River at a spot that the Aboriginals called Kébec. In 1642, Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded a Catholic mission that he named Ville-Marie and which would become Montréal at the end of the 18th century.Our forebears were among the first adventurers and settlers in new France. We walked with Champlain, learned from the native peoples, and helped build Quebec. We are descended from Helene Desportes, Louis Hebert, Marie Rollet and Guillaume Couillard.

4 Comments

Janice Saindon Ryan19 March, 2015 @ 6:13 pm

Hello,
I am trying to locate information on my 7x Great Grandfather Michel Saindon. I have come across a few pieces of information on your site when I search his name, however, not speaking or reading French it is difficult for me to understand. My question is, do you have a biography of him or any information of that kind? If you have something of the like, kindly forward it to me and I will have it translated. Thank you
JaniceSaindon-Ryan

I do not have anything in specific about your ancestor. However, should you find anything you should feel free to use it in your research.

Judy Near29 June, 2015 @ 2:25 pm

Fantastic website….I am researching both my maternal and fraternal 8th great grandmothers who were both “Daughters of the King”. Is there any record of the ship they sailed over on and also is there anyway to find out what position their husbands to be held here in Canada ie: military.
Thank you
Judy Near